The tax you’ll get no matter who wins the gubernatorial race

Not only will the climate change when Governor Christie leaves office but you'll be paying for it no matter who replaces him. I'm not talking about the political climate, I'm talking about the taxes we will have to pay when we rejoin the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative which both candidates are in favor of doing. We don't need this.

Governor Christie has withdrawn us from this and has twice vetoed legislation to get us back in calling RGGI "nothing more than an unnecessary, politically motivated tax increase.”

Here's why we don't need this:

If you check out Michael Symon's post here, you'll see that according to Sara Bluhm of the New Jersey Business & Industry Association carbon dioxide emissions in New Jersey are already below 2020 goals, and that "New Jersey’s energy sector already is among the nation’s cleanest and by far the cleanest in the PJM Interconnection region of 13 states and D.C. that includes New Jersey." So if it ain't broke why would we want to throw needless tax dollars to fix it?

Bluhm also says New Jersey’s electric generation plants are tied for second in the nation for lowest sulfur dioxide emission rates, are 10th for lowest carbon dioxide emission rates and tied for first in the nation for lowest nitrogen oxide emission rates. Maybe we should charge the other state to show them how we do it?

So where will the money go? Well nearly half the money spent from the clean energy fund over the last 7 years, went into the general fund, which means they did not need it.

If either candidate puts us back into RGGI, the legislative fiscal estimate of how much money they will bring in will be 36 million dollars in annual revenues. Part of the proceeds will be used to reduce the electricity demand among lower income and urban rate payers. Oh good, whatever we can do to help.

My position on this is: Why do we need to join an organization that will raise our taxes if we're already where we're supposed to be or better? Hopefully one of the candidates will see this and keep us out of there.

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